Category Archives: Tips & Tricks

Good news everyone , if you are using the new HyppTV box with Android. There is an exploit out there which allows you to run Play Store , install apks and basically transform the boring HyppTV into something new.

This enables roots , allows you to install a lot of programs from the Play Store (and other Google Apps) to the HyppTV box , which takes the HyppTV box to entirely a new level

Got a Pi ? Managed to transform it into an AppleTV ? Cool , now we can take it further by turning our Raspberry Pi into a media center which allows us to watch football , movies and all and on demand. Best of all you are in control and it is for FREE.

You may finally get rid of ASTRO or probably use it as a secondary ASTRO (Cable/Satellite TV) (more after the jump)

Recently , I’ve posted a Tweet about my awesome adventure with Raspberry Pi. I did get a lot of responses from people on how did I manage to do that. Basically what I did was whole bunch of googling and all. I thought of compiling them up and writing it here to make it easier for Malaysians who are planning to setup a Raspberry Pi as an AppleTV/Digital Media Center Alternative

As some of you may know currently I have a file server and a download server. The file server has a script that checks if anyone is connected if not , it goes to sleep. It can be waken via Wake-on-Lan. This is to reduce power consumption , as due to electricity tariffs which are going up in 2014 (that is in Malaysia). My File Server consumes about 60-70W of energy when it is idling. When it is asleep it only consumes about 2W

My Torrent Server on the other hand consumes about 20W (It’s a little machine that runs on Intel Atom 330) and has a 80GB of Storage. Basically I use it to download things from Deluge.

The problem is that once the file has been downloaded , I would have to move the files manually from my torrent server to my file server . It’s painful – I’ve to ssh over , scp and rm the files once it is done. It is becoming more and more troublesome when you have a large files to copy over – especially downloading movies

This is what i generally do . What’s worst is that if my file server is sleeping , I would have to issue a wake on lan command to activate it. Also I’ll have to change the destination every time based on the type of file , as i’ve my file server organised !

Recently I bought a new SAMSUNG 5-Series LED TV. It’s great in sense that it has a SPDIF/Out (compared to my old Panasonic HDTV) , it’s mcuh more lighter and it’s a SmartTV.

As you do know that I use HTPC to play back videos from the internet and all and currently the configuration is setup as Video to HDMI and Audio via SPDIF/out to my Amplifier. The reason for this setup is being that my previous HDTV did not have any Digital Out. But this current Television does support it.

So I’ve decided to connect the Toslink cable from my HTPC to my TV instead so that my HDTV can make use of the amplifier , thus making it easier for any devices to output 5.1 surroundsound. Unforutantely , this setup did not work very well with my PC.

The reason being is that moment I plugged in my HDMI Cable , Windows did detect it’s a HDTV and only offered 2.1 Audio. It did not offer Dolby Digital/DTS pass-through which means that if I play back a Dolby Digital 5.1 , it would not output correctly to my Surround. Of course other systems like xbox , STB are able to do this correctly moment you set the correct output

However in Windows (and with NVIDIA) it was not possible to bypass this. It would read EDID information from the TV. Thankfully there is a method which allows you to bypass that. This person has written a guide on how to do that , step-by-step instructions on how to do it

It works great with NVIDIA Cards a well , it’s just that after you have done the configuration you may have to re-install NVIDIA Drivers to correctly detect your Audio output

The great folks over at Cheap Digital Download, decided to sponsor a giveaway and I’m trilled to host it. We are giving you a chance to take your pick. That’s great , any game that you want from never-ending list of collection in Cheap Digital Download. If you’re that lucky winner , that particular game is yours !

Who knows , you could probably walkaway with the latest AAA title out there for your PC , that you always wanted to but couldn’t able to afford it

Recently , I purchased a raspberry pi and I have to say that it is an amazing device. It now functions as my 24/7 server, however I have already a file server whereby I use to keep important files (such as family vacation photos , important documents , backup of my phone contacts and my save game files if any). The problem was leaving the server 24/7 as it draws about 60W (idle) as opposed to the pi which is about 5W. Of course this could solved by putting the server to sleep and waking it up with a Wake On Lan tool. It’s great if it was me that want to access the shared folder , but how about my less tech savvy family-members

A lot of times , we keep hearing that ‘OMG my telco sucks la’ , ‘expensive la’ , ‘no coverage’ and with the number portability , we have the privilege of keeping our number while switching mobile operators. A lot of people ask , which is the right telco for me , which one should I choose. Here I’ve laid out some steps in picking the right telco in Malaysia.

How to pick the right telco in Malaysia

Assuming you are Telco M and want to port your number to Telco C or Telco D or Telco U (or other way around)

Ask your friends around on how is the coverage of other telco in your area (home and your workplace). This first feedback would pretty much allow you to narrow down which other telco that you can port into.

Once you have found out that which Telco has decent coverage in your place , you now need to do comparison of plans on which plan is suitable for you and what are their offerings for prepaid and postpaid

Once you have settled on the telco and the plan. You’ll have to do one final thing before changing telco and retaining your number

What’s that you ask ? – Simple , just buy their prepaid SIM pack and test it out first in your own phone. This is the best way to test out how well is their Internet services , Voice Quality and coverage. People may say thousand things , there are many factors when deciding a telco – such as your phone , the frequency (spectrum of the telco) , the distance from base station.

Once you have tried their offering and if it is up to your standard , then you would probably want to hop in and bring your number to that telco. If not, you have nothing to lose.

In the coming articles , I would probably write more on this subject especially how telcos in Malaysia are progressing and what is the best prepaid and postpaid plans out there

This is continuation of my epic guide writing a step-by-step guide for Malaysians (and people from other countries too) on building their own Home Server/HTPC or something in-between. If you have not read my first part , kindly do so by clicking here

In this part , I would be focusing on the software aspect. Assuming that you have built your HTPC/Home Server or a hybrid. Now we want to get it to run. There are two options that we can go for either taking the Windows route or taking the Linux route. I’ll briefly explain pros and cons for each of the routes.